Question about Outlook Express

I have had a windows phone from the moment it came out. I have never had any problems until a couple of weeks ago. Then I came here to this forum and see that reams of people are reporting similar (and even more unsettling) problems syncing with live.com or equivalent Microsoft account. Information that should be syncing is mysteriously disappearing and (sometimes) reappearing.

I just upgraded to a new windows phone (from windows 7 phone to windows 8), but I am seriously considering taking it back this week and moving to the iphone if I don't find out that Microsoft knows about this problem and is working on it now! Can anyone at Microsoft comment?

Here's my experience over the last couple of weeks:

My windows 7.5 phone all of sudden stopped syncing contacts...one day they just disappeared from my phone. I knew I had done nothing on my end to cause it to happen...I had not changed or added any contacts or updates for months. I had not changed or done anything to my live.com account, either. So I searched this forum and posted a couple of requests here. However, I did not have the time or energy to jump through all the hoops suggested to "fix" a problem I knew did not originate on my end. However, I did begin the process of getting everything else off my phone so that if I had to do a reset, I wouldn't lose anything important. After doing all that, I figured I might as well upgrade now while everything is off my phone and start new...I was sure the new phone would work fine when I set it up. The very day that my new windows 8 phone arrived in the mail, my contacts on my windows 7 phone mysteriously reappeared ! I am not kidding.  Nonetheless, I decided to keep the windows 8 phone and move forward. I followed all instructions, and even called to be sure I was doing it properly. New phone---again, NO Contacts, but everything else synced. I tried a reset, no luck. checked that I could still see my contacts in the "people" tab when signed into live.com online ..and yes they are there, just no contacts. That was two days ago.

Over the last two days, I have frequently checked my phone to see if contacts appear. Nothing, until about 5 minutes ago (while I was writing this, I checked again). And guess what? About 9 random contacts just showed up on my phone! ...out of almost 200 that should be there. Why now? and why only 9...I can find no pattern. And again, I did nothing to try to make them reappear. What is going on?  I am losing confidence quickly. Obviously, anyone in Customer Service who is reading this knows that a customer like me who takes the time to type all this WANTS to stay a customer. But I need a logical explanation, or I am leaving for the stupid iphone, which at least seems to be working properly! I need to be able to count on my information  being on my phone when I need it. AND I don't have time to do this again,. I have wasted so much of my valuable time trying to figure this out.

HELP!